Keap Tags vs Campaigns Explained in Plain English

Tags are labels. Campaigns are workflows.

A tag is a sticky note on a contact. It says 'this person attended my March webinar' or 'this person bought the starter package'. A tag does not, by itself, do anything. Campaigns are the workflows that watch for tags and then do things: send an email, wait three days, apply another tag, send another email.

The mental model

• ●Tag = state. What is true about this contact right now?
• ●Goal = trigger. What event causes the workflow to start? Usually 'tag applied'.
• ●Sequence = the workflow. The emails, waits, and actions that happen in order.
• ●Campaign = a container holding goals and sequences that belong to one outcome (e.g. the entire welcome series).

The two most common mistakes

• ●Using tags to send emails directly (you can't, you need a campaign).
• ●Creating a new campaign for every email instead of reusing sequences.
• ●Forgetting that a sequence keeps running on a contact even after their state changes. If someone unsubscribes mid-sequence, you need a campaign to actively remove them.

A clean tag taxonomy

Group tags into four categories. Every tag in your account should fit into exactly one.

• ●Source: where did this contact come from? (e.g. 'Source - Wufoo Form A', 'Source - LinkedIn Ad')
• ●Lifecycle: where in the journey are they? ('Lifecycle - Lead', 'Lifecycle - Customer', 'Lifecycle - Churned')
• ●Product: what have they bought or expressed interest in? ('Product - Starter', 'Interest - Coaching')
• ●Behaviour: what did they do? ('Behaviour - Clicked Webinar Replay', 'Behaviour - Opened 5+ emails 30 days')

If a tag does not fit one of those four categories, find out what it was for before you touch it. The number of tags is not the problem. Tags with no purpose and no known dependency are.

Check dependencies before you delete or rename a tag

A tag that looks unused can still be doing work. Before you delete or rename one, check what references it. Deleting a tag removes it from every contact and breaks each of those references quietly, so the order that works is: list where the tag is used, decide what replaces it, update the references, then remove the tag.

• ●Campaign goals that start a sequence when the tag is applied.
• ●Sequence steps that apply or remove the tag, and decision diamonds that branch on it.
• ●Saved searches, reports, and dashboards filtered by the tag.
• ●Merge fields or dynamic content in emails that depend on it.
• ●Integrations, forms, and Zaps that apply the tag from outside Keap.

Tags vs custom fields

Use a custom field when the value always exists and changes over time, like plan tier or renewal date. Use a tag when the fact is yes or no and historical, like attended a specific webinar. A field holds one value, so when it is overwritten the old value is gone. If you need the history, a tag or a note is the better record. Many accounts use tags where a field would be the better fit, and the result is a tag for every possible value of something that should have been one field.